


it takes an ocean not to break

by thinkatory



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Emotionally Repressed, Eye Trauma, Love Confessions, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Requited Love, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24879523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkatory/pseuds/thinkatory
Summary: Jon takes a slow breath to steady himself. He knows the truth. He knows he's Martin's only anchor to this world, isn't he, he knows what it is to be marked by an entity and being sucked directly into the Lonely is no small mark. Martin needs that anchor. Martin needs him."Jon." Martin's voice has gone terribly soft, his expression hunted. "What's going on?"Jon does what he believes he has to do.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49
Collections: Nonconathon 2020





	it takes an ocean not to break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arazsya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/gifts).



> I'm just going to very much point up there at those tags, and don't say I didn't warn you.
> 
> Title from The National's "Terrible Love."

Even after they depart its realm, the Lonely clings to Martin in scraps.

In hiding, Jon tries to hide his immense worry behind irritation that he also has to hide for the sake of not worrying _Martin_. It's not exactly working. The idea of the Lonely pulling Martin under again, of hearing that dead, lost tone from someone who's usually so alive all over again, is infuriatingly likely, and becoming the Archivist has admittedly given Jon a bit of a complex about being able to handle capital-S Situations. Even though too many of those haven't panned out in past.

Whatever. Jon's quietly stewing in the cabin when Martin sits next to him, just as quiet, and Jon can feel Peter Lukas in Martin's mind even after his death. "Don't do that," Martin blurts out.

"What?" Jon asks, level.

"You know what."

There's an awkward silence, then Jon swipes a hand over his face. "I'm sorry. It happens, I can't control it."

"Please try," Martin suggests, and exhales. "I can... feel you."

Jon offers a wry, unhappy smile and a deadpan. "Is that so bad?"

"I want you in this cabin," Martin says dryly, "not in my head."

It's a nice sentiment, but Jon's concern surges up again, tensing all through him and allowing nausea to rise. "How are you doing?" he asks, breathing out sharply. "After everything?"

"Fine. I think." Martin pauses. "Really, it's... it's fine."

"I don't know." Maybe he shouldn't have said that. He glances away from Martin, trying to pull himself together; he should know better than to let fear and worry get to him like this. "When I feel you here, I can feel..."

"You can feel what," Martin asks, tone flattening. When Jon looks over at him, Martin is leveling a stare at him.

"I feel him," Jon says, and clears his throat. "I feel Peter Lukas."

Martin falters, then sets his jaw and shakes his head. "I never let – "

"Martin." Jon holds his gaze, unconvinced. "You know there's no point in lying to me."

"Fine," Martin bursts out with, "I was... _briefly_ involved with his whole, thing, but once you came back I started to, to climb out, and – "

"Martin," Jon tries to cut in.

" _And_ ," Martin adds hurriedly, not done yet, "I know I went under in that _place_ but it's not my fault, anyone, _everyone_ except for you, would have – " His throat stops, and he glances away, embarrassed. "I don't know," he finishes, clearing his throat hurriedly. "Maybe."

Jon takes a slow breath to steady himself. He knows the truth. He knows he's Martin's only anchor to this world, isn't he, he knows what it is to be marked by an entity and being sucked directly into the Lonely is no small mark. Martin needs that anchor. Martin needs him.

"Jon." Martin's voice has gone terribly soft, his expression hunted. "What's going on?"

Jon looks at him, focused, determined, and stands, offering his hand to Martin. When Martin accepts it and allows himself to be pulled up, the obvious questions written all over his face but unspoken, Jon draws him into the bedroom. Martin falters in the doorway, but Jon pulls him along.

"Jon," Martin says again, his tone different this time, far too concerned. "Tell me what's going on."

Jon just looks at him for a moment, then says, "Get on the bed."

Martin hesitates, but moves onto the bed, propping himself up on his elbows awkwardly as he awaits further orders. "Can you talk to me?" he tries.

Jon knows he can't, or he'll lose his mind, he'll get too sentimental, he'll lose the thread and his calm with it. Instead, he goes into the bedside drawer and fetches a pair of handcuffs he knows he'll find there, and moves onto the bed to take up one of Martin's wrist and clap the first cuff onto it.

"Jon." Martin's starting to get frightened. This is the opposite of what Jon wants, but maybe more feeling is the point. He wasn't viscerally frightened in the Lonely. Besides, he's giving Martin what he wants, what he's wanted for some time, apparently, even if it's going to take extreme measures.

Jon steels himself, and finishes cuffing Martin to the bed. "Jon," Martin tries, half-begging. "Please, just talk to me, I don't – "

"You do understand," Jon cuts him off with, weary, loving even, and begins to take off Martin's clothes, from socks to trousers to pants. Martin squirms against the vague touches, trying to scramble back against the headboard, but is trapped. "Please," Jon suggests to Martin. "I need you to take a moment. Breathe."

"Jon," Martin repeats again, eyes wild with fear. "Just take these off of me and we can talk."

"You're not with me right now," Jon says before he can think twice about it, and his voice catches after. He rallies. "I can't lose you. I can't have you eaten alive the way I've been. You don't deserve that."

Martin yanks against the cuffs. "I promise, it's fading," he presses.

Jon isn't so sure. He climbs on top of Martin, still dressed, body pressed to his and faces inches apart now. "I want you to know," he says, heart terribly full.

"What?" Martin whispers. "What do you – "

No. Jon can't say it. Instead, he kisses Martin firmly, once, twice, until Martin is vaguely more pliable, and slips his hand between them to touch Martin's cock. Martin's breath hitches in his chest at the contact, but Jon doesn't stop but to spit in his hand and work him until he's harder.

"Oh, god," Martin groans, and arches into the contact. "Jon, please." He sounds, looks agonized.

Jon doesn't think he can talk anymore, not without breaking under the strain. He takes steady breaths and focuses on Martin, who yanks at the cuffs again and again. He's resisting. He doesn't know how to cope, maybe never has. He's probably felt alone every time this has happened, felt unworthy, felt all those things that Jon once thought of him that he never deserved to feel.

"Don't," Jon gets out.

Martin's at a fever pitch now, though. "Please," he begs, and something horrible is in his expression, a pain Jon can't place; Jon wishes he could say the words that would soothe Martin's troubles right now, but maybe he never will be able to.

Martin's hard now, and Jon's about halfway there. They need closeness. Martin needs to feel every bit of contact he can, to be anchored here. He can muster this, no matter how difficult it is to feel comfortable doing this even with someone he feels this way about. The thought makes him ache, and he focuses on the friction of his cock in his trousers against Martin's thigh.

"Jon." Martin's voice trembles. "I love you. Please."

Jon's resolve splinters, but he shakes his head firmly and kisses Martin before he can say anything else. He has to know. After all of this, he can't _not_ know.

_Please don't make me say it._

Martin groans into Jon's mouth, his hips arching his cock hard into Jon's hand, and it feels like it's almost time. Jon hurries off his clothes and scrambles for something to use as lube, finding a bottle of something that seems to be coyly pretending not to be lube based on its packaging, and his breaths come half-panicked as he slicks up his cock for Martin.

"I'm sorry," Jon blurts out. "If this isn't…" Ugh. "I haven't really done this before."

Martin is silent, clearly upset, and Jon ignores it, his chest aching, as he presses slicked fingers into Martin's arse. Jon isn't sure if Martin's enjoying this or not – there are mixed signals for sure, the way he shifts into the movement but the way his eyes are shut tightly as well – but he tries carefully anyway, as deep as he can go, until Martin's breaths are even shakier. That seems like a cue enough, and Jon moves between Martin's thighs to press his cock inside of Martin.

It's an obvious next step, Jon knows, but Martin's breath forces desperately out of his lungs as Jon sinks into him as deeply as he can. "Jon," he murmurs, for what feels like the thousandth time.

"Trust me," Jon whispers, and kisses him more fiercely than he'd ever imagined he'd be able to kiss anyone. Then he starts to move, though Martin's body seems to be equally resistant and interested. It's a new sort of feeling, definitely not unpleasant, and he keeps kissing Martin so he doesn't blurt out anything in an awkward, terrified tone that gives him away completely.

Martin shudders, and Jon wraps his hand around Martin's cock again, cognizant enough to at least realize that Martin needs to get off for this to work. Martin gasps as Jon jerks him firmly, and Jon's heart leaps. It's working; Martin is there with him, right now, completely.

Jon drops kisses to Martin's neck as he thrusts harder inside of him, and it feels like they're falling into a rhythm, though Martin's breaths are still unsteady in a way that Jon isn't sure is about the physical activity. He pushes that out of his mind, and his own breath gets ragged as the new sensation of the tight slickness of Martin's arse right now is almost too much for him.

"Please," Martin manages, and groans as he comes with a jerk. The tension tenses Martin around Jon's cock, and a few thrusts later Jon can't hold back and comes inside of him.

"Sorry," Jon apologizes reflexively, still tight against Martin, and kisses him just as fervently, desperate for him to feel it even if Jon can't voice it.

Martin stares at him as Jon pulls back from the kiss, and Jon sees what he needs to see: Martin is there, fully there, every inch with him. "Anything," Jon says, his voice low. "Anything you need from me."

"Jon." Martin's pleading now. "I don't – "

"I'm here for you."

Martin's gaze goes askance, and Jon feels awkward enough to at least pull his cock out of Martin. He shifts. "There's one more thing," he says, and moves off of the bed, anxious.

"What," Martin says, his attempt at a level tone falling flat from concern.

"The Beholding." Jon can't look at him. "Don't you want to be free?"

Martin is silent for a moment, and says, "Not if it means I can't be with you."

Jon shakes his head, astounded. "After everything that's happened, you can't – "

"I do," Martin says firmly. "Jon, even after, after this, I, I."

"You deserve a real life," Jon says, trying to keep his voice steady, trying to steel himself yet again, and he presses his face into his hands. "Don't you?"

"No," Martin says. When Jon looks back at him, Martin is wearing a wan smile. "Don't you know that?"

"Don't do that," Jon warns. "I don't want to hear that."

"Sorry." Martin doesn't seem to mean it. "But like you said. You're here. I'm here too."

Jon tries to steady himself again, but it's not working. "Melanie is..."

Martin cuts him off hurriedly. "Jon, I don't want that. I don't want – "

"What do you want?" Jon interrupts him, tone a bit sharper through his nerves.

"What I have."

Jon believes him. But Martin's never had astounding self-preservation, and this loyalty isn't worth him being eaten alive by the Eye the way that Jon's been. He knows, somehow, that if he somehow dies, if he's ripped apart by these nightmares, Martin is next to become the Archivist. He can't tell the future, but the Eye's intention is clear to him.

There's only one way to save him, even if Martin hates him forever.

"Stop," Martin begs, but Jon climbs on top of him again with completely different intentions, and kisses him slowly, full of intention, and Martin stares up at him.

"Do you understand?" Jon asks softly.

"Tell me," Martin asks, barely audible. "Tell me the truth."

Jon pulls in a breath. "I have to do this," he says. "I have to set you free from all this."

"That's not what I'm asking, Jon."

"Why?" Jon demands, frustrated, mostly with himself. "Why do you – "

"I need to know." Martin's smile is faint, worried. "In case this kills me."

"I won't kill you." Jon is hit with terror at the idea, though. "I... if Melanie did it – "

"Oh, did you get pointers?" Martin fires back.

Jon breathes out sharply. "You already know," he says, and moves to arch Martin's head back for a better angle, but Martin resists. " _Martin_ ," he says, weary.

"Even if you do this," Martin says, looking up at him with clear determination, "I'm not leaving you."

"I'll protect you," Jon promises. "But you'll just be you." He grips Martin's shoulder. "No Elias, or Jonah, or whoever, holding you hostage. Just a person."

"What if I want…" Martin falters.

Jon shakes his head, and pushes Martin's head back, focusing on the task at hand. He presses a wadded-up sock into Martin's mouth as a gag and begins to press his thumbs into Martin's eyes with as much pressure as he can manage. Martin screams through the gag, and nausea rises in Jon's throat and roils his stomach as his eyes begin to give. There's a horrible sensation under his thumbs as one eye pops out and the other breaks, and Martin can't seem to stop breaking desperate sobbing sounds from underneath him. There's blood, less than Jon would've anticipated, but _blood_ , and Jon rushes to get supplies to clean him up and bind his eyes with bandages Daisy apparently has on hand.

"Jon," Martin breathes, shaky, apparently almost unconscious, "Jon, please."

"Rest," Jon says, and touches his forehead tenderly before undoing the handcuffs. Jon watches Martin clutch at his face, then curl into a ball on the bed. He glances away. "I'll check on you soon."

"Don't leave me," Martin forces out.

Jon's chest hurts more than he ever could've imagined. He moves to the bed and next to Martin, slips his arms around him and draws him close. He drops a light kiss to Martin's forehead, and falls silent.

Maybe one day Jon will be able to voice it, but, for now, he knows he's proved it: he will never leave, and he will do even the most horrific things, because somehow he loves Martin Blackwood, of all people.

* * *

The Watcher's Crown succeeds through Jon's voice, and Jon and Martin rest in the bed, silent, not ready to accept the truth of their new reality quite yet.

"You're going to have to go without me," Martin says softly.

"No." Jon touches Martin's cheek, gentle. "I need to change your bandages."

"You can't just let this – "

"No."

Martin's mouth sets. "Then I'm coming with you."

" _No_ ," Jon repeats, firmer now. "Stop it."

"We have to go." Martin tilts his head at Jon. "You have to know that. We can't just – just stand by."

Jon stews for just a moment, sharp dread rising in his throat, before he says, "I won't let anything happen to you."

"You've made that pretty clear," Martin says, sardonic.

Jon shakes his head. "Later," he says, instead of anything else, and drops his forehead against Martin's, content enough to rest and pretend the world outside is as simple as it once was: a place he once thought Martin would be safe after all he'd done.

Jon pushes away the plain knowledge, the knowledge that lives alongside the everything else that now lives inside his skull, that he may have not done a single truly good and unselfish thing in a very long time. What has to be important now is _now_ , or he will never find the slightest flash of happiness again.


End file.
